Giggling and Chilling

Ahhh... Saturday!!

Today was date day with Mike. We went to Dahlonega to do a mountain drive with the Audi Car Club. It was fun. Great scenery. Not much fast driving because of traffic, but still fun. We had a picnic and then opted to head home instead of going on to Tennessee for the second trek and then heading home. But man... traffic was stupid so we might as well have gone on to Tennessee. ;) Regardless I still made it home in time to ride. It had rained on and off for the past 24 hours or more, so... I decided to go to Ashland to ride vs riding at home. 

We took a quick spin around the little lake to warm up and as we were turning across the dam, Dan saw the horses in the pasture and HAD to go say hi. BUT... that meant that we saw 4 racoon babies who then climbed the tree. :) Then we headed to the dressage arena. We did some warm up  and then did some work. We worked on our trot half passes and then the trot and canter transitions. Then we worked a little bit on the canter half pass. We finally got it both ways. Then we ran through 3-1 because... I signed up to show it at Ashland next weekend. Eeeeks! We still don't have a change but my plan was to just ride the simple instead of see how far off everything else was. 

 

So we ran through it. HOLY SMOKES Y'ALL!!! Danomite!!!! That was some pretty spectacular work. He felt phenomenal! Our first halt was pretty decent... our shoulder ins were legit and stayed consistent. Historically they have been a bit fish tail-y or inconsistent. Then our trot half passes were pretty decent. At least as far as I could tell. Then our first trot medium was LEGIT! Holy moly... he strutted! I was giggling the whole way. It was powerful, it was bouncy, and it was uphill! But not just uphill, also forward. Kelli's trick was so helpful. The downward was pretty spot on too. Then our walk work wasn't bad... though the stretchy walk needs help. Our walk half pirouettes were actually pretty fantastic! He kept the hind end moving but wasn't super wide and stayed bent. Then our upwards to the canter was lovely and our medium canter was impressive. I thought. :) And, and, AND it felt uphill! Like really uphill! Then the downward was pretty good on one side, and a bit late on the other lead but still mostly off my seat aids and decent. Our 10 meter canter circles were a little labored, so we'll have to work on that. And our simple transitions sort of sucked, but we'll fix those too. Or keep working on those. Then we did another medium trot and holy cow!!! It felt amazing too. Again, so amazing that I was literally giggling at him the whole diagonal! Wheee! We finished with a very tactfully ridden centerline. He wanted to bust it out again but I was able to keep him in a collected trot to a respectable halt. Yay! Dang son! We may be able to get our bronze medal without changes if you ride like that! I decided to quit with that, despite sort of wanting to work on the simples again. But that was just soooo good I had to reward him. 

We went for a short hack to the lake and let him have a sip. Then we trotted up hoot and holler and then walked back through the cross country field to go home. It was a nice ride! No more wildlife other thant he heron.